


A Particularly Beautiful Day

by ChocolateTeapots



Category: DCU, Green Lantern - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: A Bunch of Pretty Set Pieces Masquerading as a Story, Blue Lantern Barry Allen, Canon-Typical Pseudoscience, HalBarry Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25991326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolateTeapots/pseuds/ChocolateTeapots
Summary: Hal and Barry join the Blue Lantern Corp on a mission to relight a star.For Halbarry Week Day 1: Fave Moment “Just look at the stars if you need me”
Relationships: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28
Collections: Halbarry Week 2020





	A Particularly Beautiful Day

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a reference to the movie [Sunshine](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_6), which is about a team of astronauts on a mission to relight the dying sun. It also has a fantastic soundtrack, which [I was listening to while writing this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1c2KpurNWo).
> 
> Thank you again to my amazing beta [gumiii_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumiii_writes/pseuds/gumiii_writes). I wish I had the words to express how grateful I am for your constant support and faith that I could get the story together. This story wouldn't exist without you. Thank you so much for going out of your way to help me make my writing better and just for being an awesome friend in general.

Saint Walker folds his longer-than-human limbs to accommodate the armchair, white fingers standing out starkly against the bright green Coast City Angels mug. The curtains are drawn, not that the neighbors would see anything given how early in the morning it is. It’s probably a testament to how much shit they’ve both seen that neither of them is batting an eye at the alien sitting comfortably in Barry’s sitcom set of a living room. Honestly, if he’d been asked ten years ago what was wrong with this picture, Hal would have pointed at himself, seated comfortably on the couch with a mug of coffee and an arm slung easily around Barry’s shoulders.

“So what’s the crisis?” Hal asks at a lull in Barry and Walker’s quiet chatter. “I’m assuming you didn’t come all this way for some Blue Lantern Corp reunion.”

Walker nods at him, eyes moving between Hal and Barry. “You are correct, Green Lantern Jordan. Even now my brothers and sisters of our Corp are deputizing others for this mission, as it requires more power than we can generate with our current members.” Hal hasn’t met any others of Walker’s species, so he’s not sure if the tranquil poker face is common for his kind, a personal trait, or just a Blue Lantern thing. “Our mission is to relight a star.”

Barry looks taken aback. He’s not going to be of any help for a bit; the scrunched up face he’s making means he’s busy weighing the scientific possibility of the statement in his head, while conveniently forgetting the impossibilities they run up against every day.

Hal frowns. “I thought you Blue Lanterns could rejuvenate star systems just by doing a line dance or something.” He distinctly remembers something like that from Walker’s own history.

Walker smiles serenely over his mug. “Only in parable, Green Lantern Jordan. As with anything in life, hope must be accompanied by work on our part, and an enormous amount of energy is necessary to de-age a star. Which is why I am here. Brother Allen, I hope you will accept this invitation to act with the Blue Lantern Corp once more. Your talents in particular should help with this mission. The Guardians have agreed to lend the Green Lantern Corps might as well,” he adds, nodding at Hal.

Hal glances over at Barry, who’s staring back at him and looking about as out of his depth as Hal’s feeling. Yeah, he’s been a space cop for years, but this feels…different. He takes a gulp of his coffee, the burn and bitter aftertaste helping to clear some of the drowsy fog from his brain. 

“Okay, so that’s what we’re doing,” Hal says, because of course they’re going to help. He’s good at not getting caught up on the “how.” Instead he asks, “Why are we doing this?”

Walker’s ring projects the night sky, before zooming in on a particular star. “Sagittarius” Barry mutters next to him as the image comes to rest on a solar system hovering above the coffee table. The numerous planets roll like marbles around the basketball sized star in the center. “The star in question is nearing the end of its life. The surrounding planets have the capacity for life, which can be fostered by the star’s rejuvenation.”

Hal squints at the model. He’s not familiar with the system, but that’s not unusual. It’s a big universe out there, after all. “Why’s this a Blue Lantern thing, though?”

Walker’s face glows blue from the light of his ring. “I believe one of your planet’s great minds said it best. ‘Where there is life, there is hope.’”

\- - -

“You don’t need to come,” Barry says as they suit up to go. Barry has moved in close, fiddling with the Blue Lantern Ring without putting it on, and speaks low enough so Saint Walker couldn’t hear. “If it’s too much.”

Hal laughs and pokes him in the side, despite being pretty clear on where Barry is going with this. “Aw, do you think I’ll embarrass you in front of your Blue Lantern pals?”

Barry swats his arm. “I mean about the mission. Have you been that close to a star, since...?”

Hal closes his eyes as Barry trails off and takes a deep breath. He’s flown into Earth’s sun once, in the literal rather than the Icarus sense - and okay, maybe there’d been a little of that too. He can remember the burn of energy even through the echo of his godlike powers as Parallax. It’s been years to his memory since he’d extinguished himself to reignite the sun, even more if he counts the tie he was dead. 

Still, Hal steps forward, grasping Barry’s arms and staring into his eyes to make him believe. “It’s fine. And you’re the one who’s getting up close and personal with, what, 10,000 degrees and the power of a gazillion nuclear bombs? There’s no way I’m letting you go out there alone.”

“It’s a red star, so it’ll be cooler,” Barry corrects absently like it matters before locking his eyes back on Hal’s. “And from the sounds of it, there are going to be other Green Lanterns there. We can see if John is free, or Kyle—”

Hal leans his forehead against Barry’s with a smile. “Really, it’s fine. No fear, remember?”

Barry huffs at him, flicking his nose before slipping the ring onto his finger. “Dork.”

\- - -

Barry’s talking quietly to Saint Walker as they fly through the void towards the slowly growing red light. The two of them shine painfully bright, even for Lanterns; the Blue Lantern Corp had relocated their central battery for the mission and the entire Corp burst with unspent power even before they met up with the rest of the Green Lanterns. Unsurprisingly Barry’s trying to parse the details of what they’re about to do; Hal had tuned out when words like “nuclear fission” and “molecular clouds” started being thrown around. He knows enough of the plan, and has first hand experience that the Lantern rings can withstand the extreme heat and pressure. He’s relying on that to quell the flutter in his chest.

They’re almost close enough. The lack of a horizon line makes distances hard to gauge, but as he is traveling between planets and star systems, Hal can tell that this star is enormous. He remembers the awed feeling of approaching Earth’s Sun, but the difference in magnitude is like comparing a little turbulence to a tornado. 

They’re not even all that close yet, and already his entire vision is filled with slowly swirling red light against spots black and empty and a relief for the eyes against the intense light.

He can feel something like nervousness clawing low in his gut and shivers despite the intense heat filtering through the ring’s force field. He’s faced monsters, literal gods, and multiverse ending threats. This is different. Humbling might be the right word, Hal thinks as he watches the red light reflecting off the familiar planes of Barry’s face. Barry, who’s floating at his side and just gazing in unbridled awe, taking it in. Even with the blue glow surrounding him, Hal can see him blurring at the edges a little, speeding up so he has more time to stare.

Hal can’t help his grin.  _ He’s got to be the envy of all the other space camp kids, now .  _ Like he wasn’t already.

Everyone else is assembled, bright points of blue and green spread out as far as he can see in every direction. Hal waves at Soranik in the closest group to him, whose gesture somehow relays exasperation despite the distance. 

He’s still grinning when Barry flies up right in front of him. The blue of Barry’s eyes is eclipsed by the intense burning Blue Lantern’s light. Hal can all but hear the requisite “All will be well” reflected in his eyes.

Instead, Barry leans in, pressing a quick peck to Hal’s lips. Neither of them can really feel it, what with the rings’ force fields protecting them from space, but Hal leans into it all the same.

Raising his hand, Hal wills him a green runway stretching out and away towards the endless sea of red before them and Barry gives him a mock salute. “Back in a flash.” And then he vanishes, taking off down the green path faster than Hal’s eyes can follow.

Points of blue and green light shine in the peripheries of his vision, little paired spots of light bright even against the all encompassing glow of the dying star before him. The Blue Lanterns are the ones doing all the physics breaking parts of the mission, using Barry as a focal point to draw the star back together where it’s currently flying apart. The Green Lanterns’ task is simple: push. He assumes the particularly vivid green light far to his right is Mogo, its inhabitants protected by the green energy of the living planet’s will. He reaches out along with the rest of his Corp, adding his will to the multitude of Lanterns focusing their energy on the star. 

The streak of blue shines stark against the churning red mass. It travels across the vastness of the sphere as if moving through molasses, even though Hal knows it’s probably the fastest Barry’s ever run. He moves into a dark section of the star’s surface - relatively cool or less dense sections, his brain tells him in Barry’s voice - and Hal can see the trail of his footsteps igniting embers in his wake.

The extended, intense concentration has Hal shaking a little from the effort, so different from the intense bursts of will he’s used to expending in a fight, even as he focuses on the cosmic time-lapse playing out before his eyes. The blue streak flashing across the red expanse seems to get faster and faster as the luminous wall of red starts to compact in on itself and the vastness of space closes in around the edges. The swirling solar winds reverse, the lazily churning clouds bending towards the line of blue. As it retracts before Hal’s eyes the star burns brighter and brighter, the dull red flaring to radiant crimson, then orange, then gold. Barry’s trailing rings around the sphere now, brilliant still even against the intense burning light. Hal splits his focus as the golden light brightens more, going from white and then, finally, to blue.

Hal drops his arm and releases the majority of his will as the lines of blue and green fade across his peripheral vision. The star, once so large he couldn’t see the entirety of it, now burns bright and blue and alive, the previously sluggish movement of its solar winds now roiling brilliant azure fire.

He can just barely make out the green pathway leading back to him, and the figure upon it. Satisfied, he closes his eyes, giving them a moment of rest despite the sunshine lighting the backs of his eyelids.

\- - -

“Hey.”

Hal kind of feels like he should be proposing or something, just from the tone of the moment. The thought doesn’t have him panicking as it once would have but that’s probably just because he’s tired. So instead he focuses on Barry’s eyes, which are glued to the newly revived star and the intermittent Blue and Green Lanterns shining all around it. 

Barry’s eyes glow Lantern blue as he stares at the star of the same color. “Have I mentioned that I love your job sometimes?”

“You do remember that it’s generally a lot more meetings and punching aliens in the face.”

“All of this...” Barry laughs. “I wonder why you ever come back to Earth, when you can be out here seeing things like this.”

Hal knows this is the perfect time for a kiss, but the ring’s protection leaves them too cold and sterile. So he finds Barry’s hand, and, despite the lack of heat where their bodies touch, squeezes tightly enough so the pressure gets the point across. “I can think of a few reasons.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited to participate in Halbarry week! I love fandom community projects and have wanted to join in on one for a while.  
> That said, everything's going to be late. Because I'm good at this. And because a couple of them ballooned out of control.
> 
> So I was originally going to write something based of a single panel where Hal creates a construct of _himself_ to comfort Barry because he's ridiculous, but I ended up just going with Blackest Night instead. I’ve wanted to do something with the Blue Lantern ability of de-aging stars to their blue form for a while. It stood out in the summary of the Blue Lantern powers as a weird and kind of random factoid with story potential. Add Barry Allen, space camp nerd and I was sold.
> 
> Feel free to tell me how wrong I was about all the star science in the comments! Thank you for reading!


End file.
